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Collective Bargaining Bills Make Bad Political Theater at the Unicam (CIR)

Originally published February 25, 2011, By Linda. Updated September 16, 2014. 2 Comments

Anyone in the mood to see a play? Well, just go down to the Unicameral and take a seat in the gallery. No need to buy a ticket. You see, if you pay taxes, you've already reserved your seat for this production.

What's playing? Ever heard ofWaiting for Godot? It's an absurdist play by Samuel Beckett. For two days, "a pair of men divert themselves while they wait expectantly and in vain for someone named Godot to arrive. They claim him as an acquaintance but, in fact, hardly know him, admitting that they would not recognize him were they to see him. To occupy themselves, they eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide — anything 'to hold the terrible silence at bay'. The play opens with the character Estragon struggling to remove his boot from his foot. Estragon eventually gives up, muttering, 'Nothing to be done.' His friend Vladimir takes up the thought and muses on it, the implication being that nothing is a thing that has to be done and this pair is going to have to spend the rest of the play doing it."

Of course, our state legislators have rewritten the script a bit to suit the times and the sensibilities of . . . well, themselves. Heaven forbid they play to their audience -- US. In this Unicameral production they never get past “doing nothing”. They remain perpetually stuck in the first act.

After squandering the opportunity to reform the CIR last session, our current crop of state senators, we are told, have seen the light. No less than NINE bills have been introduced, each one purporting to reform the process in one way or another. (The fact that so many bills were introduced is extraordinary in itself. It is a rare thing for more than one bill to be put forward on any subject, thanks to a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering that apparently takes place in all those smoke-filled rooms at the Capitol.)

But this was just an elaborate prologue to the play itself. You see, the senators have accepted the role of the friends, waiting for the arrival of Godot. Who is Godot, you may ask? Senator Steve Lathrop. (Hold your applause until the end. Please. Trust me.)

Like Vladimir and Estragon, the other 48 senators will wait in vain for their “Godot” to arrive. Unfortunately, the way this is scripted, even if Senator Lathrop puts in an appearance, we, the audience, will wish he hadn't.

Why? Let me count the reasons and the ways:

Senator Lathrop is a Democrat. And, yes, I do know that the Unicameral is nonpartisan. Excuse me for a moment. (BWAH-HA-HA-HA!!!) Okay. I'm back now.

Since at least 2008, the group that has most consistently supported Senator Lathrop, making up the largest percentage of his political donations as a group, is organized labor, including public sector unions. (See graphs images, below).

In spite of these facts, Senator Lathrop was ELECTED to the chairmanship of the Business and Labor Committee by the votes of his fellow state senators. And, get this: A supermajority of those fellow senators are Republican. Speaking as one of those Republican senator's constituents, I thought you knew better. Guess I was wrong.

Senator Lathrop introduced one of the nine bills that proposes to reform the CIR, LB397.

LB397 is a “shell” bill. IT DOESN'T PROPOSE TO DO ANYTHING TO ALTER THE CIR. It's merely an empty “shell” waiting to be filled.

In spite of this fact, LB397 was one of the bills that was “heard” by the Committee on February 7th. During the time allotted to discussion of LB397, Senator Lathrop talked about a group of people representing “all sides” that he has convened over the last few months to come to an agreement about how best to reform the CIR.

Senator Lathrop's working group includes himself, representatives of the public sector unions, representatives of the elected officials at the municipal level, and their lawyers. Funny how “all parties” doesn't seem to include the people who pay the tab -- the taxpayers.

Meanwhile, the other 48 of our state senators eat, sleep, converse, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicide — anything "to hold the terrible silence at bay,” the implication being that nothing is a thing that has to be done and these senators are going to have to spend the rest of the play doing it.

Note that Congressmen attempting to take action are engaging in acts that are, at best, questionable under our Constitution; Article II, Section 2, "He (The executive / the President) shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur;". The Senate shouldn't have taken up Lee Terry's bill.

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Every January, the Lincoln Journal Star Editorial Board publishes it's annual "agenda", stating, "Our intent is to be clear and direct with our readers on our priorities." In both 2011 and 2012, the agendas published included mention of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Question: Why do people believe that any "news" outlet, whether it be print or broadcast, is "fair and balanced", unbiased, or objective? Journal Star, by stating it HAS an agenda is clearly signalling to anyone reading that the newspaper does not exist to report events, but to ADVOCATE. We could thank the Journal Star Editorial Board for being so clear in notifying readers. But, I contend that the claim of an intent to be "clear and direct" is, in itself misleading. Considering the way in which Journal Star regularly reports on many issues, including the Pipeline, and specifically, the timing of publication of the price impact issue, Journal Star proves that its stated agenda about the pipeline was not "clear and direct" - its advocacy was clearly not limited to re-routing.

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When Dubas testified before the Unicameral's Natural Resources Committee about her special session bill, that, '...[W]e have been trying to pass siting laws for the past three years. If the lobbying efforts had spent less time, energy, and money blocking our work, we would not be in this special session...'This is a discussion and a decision that should have been made already. We were lobbied to become uncertain about our rights. Now we are faced with citizens who feel we have ignored their concerns and misleading and aggressive threats of billion dollar lawsuits.'" It was such amazing statements by an elected official that led us to characterize Dubas precisely as we did in our parody game show piece about the whole Nebraska Pipeline affair, "The New National Past Time: Pipeline Hot Potato"

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The Sovereignty Resolution was originally numbered LR292 – but due to an error in the original wording, it had to be re-introduced with a new number, LR539. We only make mention of this fact because some of the information available includes the original number, some the new number. HERE is a link to the Rules of the Legislature, the copy to which we’re linking is from the most recent session, which is the one most readily available – we do not have time to track down changes since 2010.

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It's important to note that Senator Fulton's comments in June of 2009 about State Sovereignty / Tenth Amendment and balanced federalism are indicative of a fundamental misunderstanding that goes beyond what can be articulated merely be contrast. We cannot fully address this issue here but intend to do so in the future. Meanwhile, if readers are curious about how Sen. Fulton articulated the issue of State Sovereignty to the Unicameral committee before which the Resolution was heard and his purposes for doing so, click HERE to read the transcript. Also, for further statements by Senator Fulton regarding the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline, see the video located HERE.

Special law or legislation is, "a law that applies to a particular place or esp. to a particular member or members of a class of persons or things in the same situation but not to the entire class and that is unconstitutional if the classification made is arbitrary or without a reasonable or legitimate justification or basis"

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Because there was an effort by Nebraskas' officials to "run out the clock" and avoid taking action, there is serious potential for TransCanada to sue for damages based on a "bad faith" argument. This project has been known for some time, so lawmakers and the Governor had the opportunity to act much earlier.

The information TransCanada submitted on their Presidential Permit application for the Keystone XL project omits the particular information provided to the Canadian NEB about PADD II price increases and only mentions PADD III market increases. UPDATED May 6, 2012: Note that the original link provided in this footnote - directly to the TransCanada website's posting of the documents submitted - no longer works. TransCanada has apparently removed the document from its website. The Internet Archive's WayBack Machine, however, did archive the link, and I have also downloaded a copy of the document "just in case". Click HERE to visit the archived link and download / view the document.

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As we have previously noted, we have received multiple, independent reports that J. Peter Ricketts is a key local benefactor for AFP-NE; in addition, Ricketts is the Founder, Director, and major funder of Platte Institute

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An individual who went on the AFP-NE bus trip reported to me that he had a change of heart upon arriving in Atkinson and decided not to testify in support of the project; although there were no explicit statements by AFP-NE regarding testimony, the fellow who had changed his mind was aggressively pressured by the State Director throughout his time in Atkinson.